Dear Geghard,

You condemn armed Americans from all walks of like patrolling our borders. In our culture, we have a right to keep AND bear arms. In your culture you don’t believe in defending yourselves so you allow yourselves to be rounded up and slaughtered like sheep — 1915 — then blame everyone else for not coming to your aid. You Armenians desert your own country then come here and condemn ours. I would like to leave you with an old saying. PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES SHOULDN’T THROW STONES.

Sincerely,
Minute Man

Response

The opinion piece addressing the issue of vigilantes calling themselves Minute Men did not condemn armed Americans from patrolling our borders.
Trained Americans whose profession is the prevention of illegal immigration must patrol this country’s borders since, as it was stated in the article, illegal immigration must remain impermissible for myriad reasons. Amateurs on the other hand, simply looking to put the military fatigues and rifles they bought from an army surplus store, are not professionals and so they should not be allowed to fulfill the jobs of professionals.

As for immigrants leaving their country to come to America, whether it be from Armenia, Africa, South America, Asia, or Europe, their immigration is anything but an abandonment of their country; it is finding a new home. A concept any Minute Man’s forefathers traveling over with the Massachusetts Bay Colony are all too familiar with.
The right to bare arms is a constitutional right. The right to use firearms against another human being is a different issue. Imagine if everyone in this country owned a nuclear bomb and was able to use it at their will. Imagine the death and destruction that would follow.
To use the Armenian Genocide as a guage of how patriotic Armenians are is not only irrelevant to the Minute Men controversy but also ludicrous. Are the Jewish people an incompetent people because Hitler massacred them?

— Geghard Arakelian is an El Vaquero staff writer.